SAN JOSE, USA: Telecom networking equipment vendor Cisco enhanced its data centre networking portfolio for physical, virtual or cloud computing environments.

Cisco introduced new switching products that augment its Unified Fabric portfolio, which consists of Nexus data centre switches and MDS storage switches that connect servers, data storage, and corporate networks within data centre and cloud.

Cisco unveiled second generation capabilities for Nexus 7000 series and FabricPath support for Nexus 5500 switch; together they support over 12,000 10GE server ports.

Cisco also added new switches with 'sub-microsecond latency' to Nexus 3000 ultra-low latency switching series, and introduced a virtualized version of its ASA security appliance.

The new Fabric 2 module and new high density L2/L3 10GbE F2 series line card for the Nexus 7000 series offer 768 Line Rate L2/L3 10GbE ports in a single Nexus 7000 series chassis. It also provide less power per port (less than 10W per 10GE port).

The Nexus 5500 provides 10GbE density in a top-of-rack form factor, and will support FabricPath, a NX-OS innovation.
With the new adapter FEX and VM-FEX capabilities (based on the emerging standard IEEE 802.1BR), the Nexus 5500 series can now support thousands of virtual machines with a single point of management, providing consistency across physical and virtual domains, claims the company in a release.

New Cisco Nexus 7009, features compact form factor (14RU) and virtualization support.

The two new Cisco Nexus 3000 series switches deliver high density 40 Gigabit Ethernet (16 port 10G/40G) and copper (48 port 100Mb/1GbE) options for L2/L3 deployments.

The Nexus 2248TP-E is designed to support streaming video and audio, bursty traffic, and Big Data environments. The Catalyst 6500 brings advanced VPLS (A-VPLS) to enable Layer 2 data centre interconnect.

Security

Cisco also expanded its security portfolio and added a virtual firewall for multi-tenant and cloud environments. The Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) will be available in a virtual form factor. new Cisco ASA 1000V cloud firewall, which integrates with the Nexus 1000V software switch.

Complementing Cisco's Virtual Security Gateway (VSG), the ASA 1000V extends firewall capabilities to provide security for physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructures.

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support is now available across the Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) portfolio, enabled through the new 5.1 software release.

Cisco also introduced a couple of services - Network Operation Automation Service and Unified Fabric Optimization Service.